


love each other so

by gloss



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batman: Year Three, M/M, passive-aggressive blowjobs, post-ADitF, references to underage sexual relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 10:54:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick can't go home.</p>
<p>
  <i>References to underage/intergenerational sexual relationships and fantasies.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	love each other so

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inlovewithnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/gifts).



> I've always been obsessed with [the scene](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/979880.html) in **Batman: Year Three** where Dick, visiting stately Wayne Manor in the wake of Jay's death, goes to _Bruce's room for clues_.   
>  Title from The Mats' ["Androgynous"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8J9WssSj7Q).

When Dick was in tenth grade, he had to go home sick from school. Alfred was, uncharacteristically, out of touch, so the nurse let Dick lie down on the cot at the back of her office with a pile of old magazines ( _Vanity Fair_ , _Gothamette_ , _Town & Country_) .

He curled up on his side and leafed through the glossy pages, not quite reading. The paper was somehow stiff, like it'd been soaked, then dried out, but also soft as one of the chamois shirts Bruce wore when they went to his cottage in the Adirondacks, when they were supposed to be "roughing it".

Pictorial after pictorial, snapshots from gallery openings and gala fundraisers, lots of glittering jewels and blinding-white toothy smiles. He was about to give up, just lie back and close his eyes, when he came across the next two-page spread.

It showed a beautiful entryway in a stately old home. Sunlight cut across the frame from the left, striping the glossy mahogany floors with amber. A broad marble staircase, each step nearly as wide as a church pew, rose to the second floor on the right.

He traced with one fingertip the angle of one sunbeam, from floor-to-ceiling window to the curvaceous shadow of the staircase. He was estimating whether he could cover the same distance in backflips.

Only when the nurse pulled back the paper curtain to tell him Alfred was here did Dick blink and realize, with a sudden, cleaving certainty, that he was looking at pictures of his own home.

Wayne Manor was home, but it was never entirely recognizable, nor familiar. It was a theatrical set through which he moved, however easily (movement was never the problem), but not a space he inhabited.

This was Bruce's home; more than that, this was Bruce's _family's_ home.

And Dick hasn't been back for god knows how long.

He has been busy -- he has made sure of that, busy with the Titans, with Kory, with being Nightwing. With being elsewhere.

Staying away becomes a habit, but it takes real effort for him to _be_ away.

He's padding through the manor now, and if Jason's ghost is following him, Dick isn't aware of it. He can't imagine Jason being any quieter, any more tractable, as a ghost than when living. He was basically a poltergeist in human skin, the few times Dick did have to deal with him, a spitting, snarling, swearing little terror.

There's no trace of him, living or ghostly, in what was nominally his room. You didn't have to be the world's greatest detective, or his pupil, to gather from the tightly-made bed, snug as a hymen, and empty closets, that either Jason never stayed here, or --

that he never would again.

Dick's own room remains much as he left it. Cleaner, certainly, well-tidied, but still _his_ , from the Culture Club posters on the wall to the rolled-up sweat socks in the top drawer.

Jason's room is more anonymous than an interstate motel room.

There is a shortcut, however, in the dumbwaiter just down the hall to Bruce's suite. Dick climbs in and edges down the dark passage, walking sideways like someone on an Egyptian tomb wall.

Bruce's suite is quiet, tidy, as familiar as any place here that is not Alfred's kitchen or the Cave. His slippers wait by the bed. The trunk he took to Groton, then, later, around the world, is still at the foot of the bed, as if he's just back for the summer, as if he's still living out of it.

He hasn't felt Jason's death yet. He wonders if he ever will, beyond a general sadness, an almost perfunctory resentment about death-in-general, concern for Alfred, for Bruce.

He knows Bruce is not, as Clark said, "taking it well". Alfred would not concur, not verbally, but the strain around his eyes and lips as he turned away said everything.

"Your hair is too long." Bruce's voice, as he emerges from the walk-in closet, is every bit as rough as the one he uses on the streets. "How can you possibly work with hair like that?"

"Hi to you," Dick says. He rolls one shoulder, then the other, sticks his hands into his jacket pockets, then pulls them out and stretches out his fingers. He is never more _aware_ of his body, skin over meat, tendons pulling and connecting, bones grinding, than when he's under Bruce's gaze like this. "How're you --"

Bruce closes his eyes, more than a blink, before passing Dick, clapping him absently on the shoulder, to sit on the edge of the bed. His bare feet push through the carpet pile, blind toes seeking the slipper like slugs.

"What brings you by?" he asks before Dick can finish. He's trying to sound bright, friendly, cordial. 

It's three in the goddamn afternoon, and Bruce looks ready for bed. His eyes are stained pink, which could be tears, or alcohol, neither of which Dick has ever seen him indulge in.

"Checking on you," Dick says. He knows he shouldn't, knows, more, that he doesn't want to have this conversation, whatever this is. But it's the truth and he has never been able to lie, fib, playact. He just can't. "Came to see you."

Bruce spreads his arms and shrugs. "I'm here, thanks."

There had been a tiny funeral. Dick wasn't invited; Alfred cited "security concerns". He'd never realized he was a threat.

But this face Bruce is wearing -- haggard, eyes hooded, mouth curled in a shape between smirk and snarl -- this is what Dick imagines he wore to the funeral. A Perry Ellis suit, black silk socks to match the tie, and this face. Like something out of a World War II newsreel, an opera house or church in Germany or London, only the facade left, and that in patches, enclosing nothing but sky.

Dick goes to sit next to Bruce, but Bruce shoves him back. "Don't, that's his --"

This was Jason's side, then. That's what's different. Bruce's slippers are on the wrong side.

"I'm sorry," Dick tells him, and he's folding down to crouch, one hand then the other on Bruce's knees. Looking up at him like he always has, not blinking. "I'm so, so sorry."

Bruce's lips move against each other. They're chapped. There's a tiny patch of stubble on the left side of his jaw, right below the bone, where the skin is softest.

Bruce raises his hand between them; Dick tenses, expecting another shove, but Bruce just looks at his hand, the broad knuckles and long, elegant fingers, then touches Dick's hair, pushing it out of his eyes.

"Far too long," he mutters, almost resentfully.

"Hippie," Dick says and smiles. Bruce's hand is hot against his cheek, curving around his ear. "Sorry."

"Stop saying that." Bruce closes his eyes again and there's a twin gleam of wet on both sets of lashes. He blinks it away and closes his fingers in Dick's hair, pulls it more roughly than playfully.

"Sor--" Dick stops himself after the first syllable. He leans away a little, just to get the sting of follicles under strain. "What do you --? What can I do?"

People ask that, they mean they'll bring casseroles, sit with you, maybe help with all the post-mortem tasks and chores: correspondence, headstone, lawyers.

He asks that and it's something else entirely. Bruce's mouth falls open, his gaze softens and seems to blur, and Dick knows what to do. He's quick on the uptake, always has been, talented both physically and emotionally, as the Cave's Kray's files would have it.

Bruce grasps Dick's skull with both hands, crushingly hard, one set of fingers hooked around an ear, the other digging into the tendon at the nape of Dick's neck. Hauls him closer and Dick slips forward, up onto his knees, freeing his own hands to yank down Bruce's fly, tug his pants open. There's heat here, the soft silky texture of Bruce's boxers, and then, with a reach and twist of the wrist, his cock heavy in Dick's hand.

He bites the inside of his cheek to wet his mouth, but the head is already sticky and shining in the half-dark between them, a small tender glimmer, like a target.

And this is just as well, because Dick's always been better when he can _do_ rather than talk, and maybe Bruce, despite his genius and fluency with words, is the same way. Maybe that's why they used to work so well together, why Bruce threw him away when Dick got hurt (damaged goods), maybe this is all they ever should have been together. He can take it pretty far, swollen head throbbing against the back of his throat, then farther, his breath going shallow through his nose, Bruce's nails raking at his scalp.

Dick works his tongue, getting used to the weight, the sheer _girth_ of it (leave it to Bruce to excel in every possible thing), before trying anything fancier.

There's not much room for finesse, not here, clutched by Bruce, wreathed in the smell of him and the broken, gasping noises he's making, but Dick strives to please. Hollowed cheeks, flickering tongue, he just pushes down and up and back down.

How long has he fantasized about this? At least as long as he _could_ jerk off, probably longer, right here in this room, often with Clark, too, hands everywhere, need and desire, thrusting and twisting, he'd always thought it would be bliss.

Jason got here first, and who knows how well he did this, what made Bruce ask him to his bed when he never invited Dick, always ignored whatever blatant signal (but he thought he so subtle!) he was making.

There's a thick vein twining around Bruce's cock, hammering with his pulse, and Dick probes it with his tongue, swallows around the shaft, keeps swallowing, and when Bruce gulps, says Jason's name, Dick watches him with wide, burning eyes, and takes every nanolitre of come, spattering, choking, filling his throat, his nose.

They are silent afterwards. Bruce pulls away, tidies himself, passes one hand through his hair. Dick rocks back to his heels and upwards, anxious, restless, breathless. He's all the way hard, feels it throb with every movement as he swipes his arm across the sweat on his face.

"Excellent work. Nearly professional-level quality," Bruce says when he returns from the bathroom, hands and face clean. 

That's something Brucie would say. Something that's a dismissal and an insult, sliding all the blame to Dick's shoulders. 

That neat, vicious imposition of role, deliberate and sudden, is Bruce's specialty.

If he ever did that to Jason, Dick thinks he might actually never speak to Bruce again.

Dick heads out. He slides down the staircase rail, side-saddle, heels drumming the marble as he descends.

He finds the tiny headstone, no bigger than a shoebox, far smaller than Bruce's _footlocker_ , just past the old orchard. There are initials, numbers, nothing else, and Dick sinks back to his knees. The loamy earth is less forgiving than Bruce's carpet. He rests one hand on the top of the stone, feels the day's warmth in its rough surface.

He hopes like hell Jason does haunt them. They all deserve it.


End file.
